


Target Audience

by rainpuddles



Category: Sword Art Online
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:20:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4759679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainpuddles/pseuds/rainpuddles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gun Gale Online is holding a brand new, rare items campaign and Kirito simply cannot miss out on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Target Audience

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ankari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ankari/gifts).



> Happy (slightly belated) birthday! ♥

Kirito's life was certainly much easier before the 3rd Bullet of Bullets tournament, not only because of the serious events that transpired right before and up until the very end of it, but also because now he'd become familiar with Gun Gale Online itself.

When he first converted his ALO avatar into GGO he had far too many things to worry about: managing to enter the tournament and making it to the final round, finding a suitable weapon, keeping an eye out for Death Gun, keeping his real identity a secret from Sinon…

But during that short time he spent learning the ropes, he was also able to experience firsthand one of the biggest features of the game, Real Money Transactions.

… Or, more precisely, he _should_ have been able to, had he had the chance to properly enter his real life information while signing up for the BoB tournament. Oops.

Still, that incident was more than enough to make him curious about what it would be like to _play_ the game itself; to enjoy it for what it was, without having to worry about real deaths. So after a couple of months he decided to go back to it.

At first he did it only for the latest edition of the BoB tournament. He wouldn't be entering himself, but Sinon was and he wanted to root for her in (virtual) person. Then, he decided to stick around a little longer, since his account had already been converted and all, and unfortunately (or not) ended up becoming more and more familiar with the game's mechanics.

The thing about GGO is that while skilled players could easily make a living out of it, or at least earn about enough to have their subscriptions paid for by the game itself, the game itself also had many perks that one could only gain access to by using real money.

"In the end it _is_ kind of a P2W game", he'd told Asuna.

"P-Pee to _what_?!" she replied, somewhat flustered. Kirito couldn't help but laugh, after all, her girlfriend was still in the process of acquainting herself with video games.

"P, 2, W," he repeated, scribbling it out on a napkin. "It stands for Pay To Win".

Asuna unconsciously tilted her head slightly to the side, squinting at the napkin. "Does that mean what I think it means…?"

"Depends on what you're thinking. You're not actually bribing admins or anything to help you come out at the top of competitions. It's more about spending money to gain access to extremely rare and powerful items and weapons."

"Wait, how does that work?"

Kirito swallowed a large bite of dark chocolate cake before replying. "Well, for example, there's certain areas with rare enemies that, of course, drop even more rare weapons and armor; but to get into those areas you need to pay a pretty expensive fee. Oh, that's all in in-game money, by the way, credits."

Asuna nodded as she sipped from her cup of tea, her full attention focused on Kirito's words.

"Average players can just save up credits to pay for that fee, but these tend to be time-limited events, so unless you've been saving for a really long time you'd only really be able to pay that a couple of times at best. Then, of course, the enemies in the area have crazy stats, so it's recommended that you have good equipment while going in. _Even then_ , it's entirely possible to get killed without finding any rare items and when you get killed you respawn out of the area," Kirito gestured with his fork as he spoke, using it to emphasize certain words. It made him look a little like an orchestra director.

"Okay, but where does the actual money come in…?"

Kirito smiled, he was already prepared to also explain that part, "Well, just like how you can convert credits into Japanese or American currency, you can also do it the other way around."

"Eh? Seriously?!" Asuna's eyes widened with surprise. Now that she thought about it, that made a lot of sense.

"Yeah! I mean, the 3,000 yen a month is not bad at all, when you think about all the money you can make as a Pro, but where does that leave Zaskar? It wouldn't make sense for players in the game to make more money that the actual company behind it, would it?"

"I see…"

"Right. So, that's why I say it's P2W. You pay real money to have it converted into credits and then with those credits you can get stuff that will put you at an advantage versus other players."

"Isn't that kind of unfair, though?" Asuna reached across the table with her fork to "steal" a small bite of Kirito's cake and he, in turn, gently pushed the plate closer towards her as soon as he noticed.

"Depends on how you see it. It would be unfair if GGO didn't deal with RMT, but when that's one of the main draws of the game, it only makes sense to have that kind of system. In the end, it's up to players how much they want to invest into their hobby, and whether they want to make a living out of it or not."

Asuna fell silent for a moment, letting all that information sink in as she savored the dessert. When she finally spoke again, her tone was more serious.

"Kirito-kun."

The boy instinctively straightened up his posture in his seat. "Y-Yes?"

"You'd better not be spending all of your salary on GGO."

"I'm not! I'm not!" He blurted out immediately, gesturing frantically with his hands. "I mean, o-of course I have to pay for the subscription even if I don't log in every day, but I'm not enough of a regular player to need that kind of perks, h-hahaha." Kirito laughed sheepishly, but instead of reassuring Asuna that only made her more suspicious. After all, her boyfriend had a reputation when it came to rare drops.

"Well, at the end of the day, what you choose to spend money on isn't really any of my business, Kirito-kun." She spoke casually, but both of them knew full well that at least in the virtual world that wasn't true at all. As a (once more) married couple they not only shared a house, but also their whole inventory. Kirito's in-game currency and all of his possessions were Asuna's and viceversa.

Kirito let out a somewhat defeated sigh and tried to reassure her once more. "Seriously Asuna, with conversion rates being what they are it wouldn't even be a smart choice. Plus, it's not like GGO is my main game."

That last sentence alone was enough to make a warm smile spread across Asuna's face. Yes, if there was one thing she could be 100% confident in, was that Kirito wouldn't drop out of ALO to go into a different virtual world. Not only were they both immensely happy there, it was also the place where they could freely spend time with all of their friends, and… most of all, it was Yui's home.

Asuna looked down at her own dessert, which consisted of a generous slice of strawberry cheesecake covered in whipped cream, then she dipped her index finger in it and then reached across the table to playfully smear some of the cream on the tip of Kirito's nose, concluding with a "Fair enough."

*****

In his defense, Kirito didn't lie when they had that conversation. No, he had no intention to permanently switch over to GGO, yes, he was mostly a casual player, and yes, it definitely wasn't a smart choice to convert yen into credits due to the way the game economy was set up.

The problem here was that Kirito had always been full of poor choices (which, to be fair, Asuna already knew) and while he wasn't exactly paying exorbitant amounts of credits to get into premium areas, he had become slightly addicted to GGO's minigames.

SBC Glocken, the capital of GGO, was not only the starting point for all players, but also the place to be if one wanted to shop for weapons and further customize an avatar. As a safe zone, it was also ideal for all sorts of "administrative" processes (like signing up for special events) to take place and for people to meet up and spend time together outside the battlefield. The aforementioned minigames were one of the many ways in which players could choose to pass the time while in the city.

Kirito had had his first taste of them on the same day he met Sinon, with that one bullet dodging game. Normally he wouldn't have been that interested, but his need for quick credits and his competitive spirit combined led him to try the game out _and_ come out successful. And just like in real life, these virtual game centers were filled with all sorts of different games: shooting targets, whacking dolls, throwing balls, racing, dancing… the possibilities were endless, especially since a virtual environment allowed for more creativity and features.

In-game stats could also directly affect your performance in these games. More STR would give you an advantage at hammer and punching machines, while a high DEX was sure to come in handy for the shooting kind. However, there was one stat in particular that had an effect on all sorts of games, LUK.

Most people weren't in GGO for the casino area, so practically nobody knew about that -- after all, LUK was only supposed to increase drop rates and critical hits while in battle. However, it didn't take Kirito very long to work this all out by himself. LUK was such a random parameter that most players wouldn't even bother allotting points to it. It seemed kind of useless when you could just raise the rest of your stats for more overall efficiency. And so, since he wasn't all that interested in the competitive side of GGO and since his avatar's stats were already pretty balanced from his time in SAO and ALO, he decided to start raising his LUK. 

It didn't take long to see his efforts come to fruition and soon he was getting enough credits from the games to make his questionable hobby nearly self-sustainable. He could only really focus on one or two games at a time, since like with his very first one, most of them would reward winners with the credits paid to play it throughout several weeks or months. So he'd win those, and then move on to the next one.

*****

"... yeah, so Zaskar is currently making an active effort to get more female players into GGO."

Sinon's voice was somewhat distant, but the topic helped Kirito stir awake faster than normal. He lazily opened one eye from his spot in the couch, as if that would help him hear better.

"Eeeh? Seriously?" Leafa joined in. "What for?"

Sinon made a bit of an uncomfortable face, "to get more male players in turn." 

Silica glanced between her friends, giving them a puzzled look. Liz sighed and placed a hand on the younger girl's shoulder. "If they get a decent female playerbase, more guys will be interested in signing up for GGO because that'll…" she gestured awkwardly "... increase their chances of getting a girlfriend, or something."

Silica blushed fiercely.

"That's so gross!" Leafa called out from her chair. Liz nodded, "yeah, but it works, that's how ALO got a balanced playerbase. Or do you really think guys would normally be interested in a game whose dominating race is fairies?" As she said this, she gave Klein a bit of a knowing glance, which made him start coughing nervously.

Asuna, who was coming out of the kitchen with a tray that had a cute teapot and several cups on it, quickly joined in the conversation. "Is that true, Kirito-kun?"

Kirito, who knew there was no longer a point in pretending to be asleep, gestured wildly with both arms--then immediately set them down again. For a moment, he had forgotten Yui was still asleep on his chest and getting up would be a bad idea. "That's not why I started playing ALO!" he replied in a hushed tone.

Asuna smiled. "No, not ALO, but what about GGO? As a man, would you be more likely to join a game that had a significant number of girl players too?"

The girls all looked among themselves and started giggling under their breath, which only made Kirito scowl, a mix of embarrassment and frustration. "That's not why I play games, I'm all about the setting and the system. Why don't you ask Klein instead?"

"Hey, man! That's not fair!" the whole room erupted in laughter. Luckily, much like her "dad", Yui was a heavy sleeper, so she only shifted inside his pocket.

"They did add some new games to the arcade area, though," Sinon nodded at Kirito. "I haven't checked them out myself yet, but I figured you might be interested."

And sure enough, he was. After a couple of days he converted his account once more to log on to GGO and see for himself. Sure, he could have just looked them up online, but he wasn't big on spoilers as a whole.

Considering that these were part of the "get more girls to play GGO" campaign Kirito assumed they'd be something more… gender-specific. Not to say he wouldn't be interested in them because of that, but GGO was indeed, full of annoying and judgmental men who would more often than not bully other players over their avatar or weapon choices if they were deemed as "too feminine". Kirito couldn't care less what other people thought of him, but that kind of thing would always get on his nerves -- let alone the fact that most people still assumed he was a girl and tried to flirt with him on a regular basis.

The point is that these games were, yes, clearly aimed at girls with its prizes, but in the practice they still retained enough of a competitive aspect to get male players trying them out too.

They were claw machines.

One of them was packed with jewelry -- not just for aesthetics' sake, no. The necklaces and bracelets all came with varying stat boosts for the wearer, and the smaller the item, the higher its stats would be. Moreover, these were gender-specific items, meaning that male avatars would be unable to equip them. You know, just to be sure that everything would work according to Zaskar's plan.

Aside from cute jewelry one could also try for simpler accessories like headbands and ribbons. The cost for this machine was lower, but naturally it also applied to the kind of boosts one could get from these items. And then, the third machine that had been set up had nothing but adorable stuffed animals inside. The peculiar thing was that this one had the highest cost of them all. 

"They're skill boosters…" Kirito whispered out loud, as he pressed his face against the machine's glass.

"Oh, is that so? Not bad at all, then," Sinon replied, from the other side. "I'd never heard of anything like this before."

Kirito nodded, looking more closely at the animals inside. Most of them were bears, but there were also rabbits, cats, and exactly one dragon inside. All with varying color schemes which served, presumably, as indicators of the type of skill they applied to.

"It's pretty handy, when you think about it. If they want to get more new players, they probably won't be thrilled to have to grind forever in order to catch up to oldbies. These all would work both as shortcuts and handicaps."

"Ahh… I think I see what you mean," Sinon nodded. "Instead of spending two weeks training their Suggestion every single day, they could get one of these and instantly level up that skill."

"Right, exactly."

"And the skills vary depending on the species?"

A group of male players was approaching the new set up now, so both Kirito and Sinon instinctively distanced themselves from the game. The last thing they wanted was some guy offering to win stuff for them.

"No, I think the colors represent the different skills… the species are probably an indicator of how much each plushie will increase the skill's level. Or maybe they unlock abilities?"

"Oh, that would be neat!"

From a distance they could see the burly men push and shove at each other. "You go! You're the one who wanted to try this!", "Fuck off, I'm not touching that thing!", "What, are you scared it'll turn you into a girl?". Kirito and Sinon quietly turned to look at each other with severely unimpressed faces.

"Okay! Move away! I'll do it! No one beats me at claws IRL!" Four of the men pulled away to let their fifth friend have a go at it, but still teased him from the sidelines. "Give up, Jang, you don't even have a girlfriend", "Hahaha! I bet he's planning to save that for when he gets one… IN FIFTY YEARS!"

Jang flashed them all obscene gesture with his left hand while he used his right one to pay for a 2-turns round. "Shut up and watch a master at work, you losers."

Kirito didn't waste any time in moving to the side, so he could have a good angle of what was going on inside the virtual glass case. The guy did seem to know what he was doing, as he carefully positioned the claw above one of the bears… he even moved to the sides of the machine to make sure the placement was just right. At this point, everyone else had gone quiet.

Jang pressed the catch button and watched as the claw swiftly descended and closed around the stuffed animal, the whole group started cheering and whistling. … A little too soon, perhaps, since as soon as the claw started to move up again the bear slipped and fell back on the pile. Loud frustrated noises followed suit, but Jang raised up his hand to get them to quiet down. 

"This shit's normal. Plus, it's brand new, I gotta get used to the speed and strength first." The group immediately started making fun of him again: "Right, right! Didn't you saw you were an expert?", "Boooo! What a waste of time!", "Least they weren't my credits, hah!".

But the man's words didn't slip past Kirito. Speed and strength could easily translate into AGI and STR for GGO effects and those were two of his highest stats in game. Surely he'd have a better chance at getting one of the prizes than those guys over there.

*****

"It's almost dinner time, can we call it a day?" said Sinon, after yawning loudly. She was sitting on the floor with her legs crossed, only a few steps away from the claw machines.

"No, no, no! I still have a few rounds left!" Kirito held up a hand, as a request for silence, and proceeded to try and catch one of the stuffed bears for the thirty-something-eth time this evening. But, just like all of the previous attempts, it resulted in failure. "Aw, come _on_!!" Kirito slammed his hands against the glass and stomped twice out of sheer frustration.

The girl sighed, more than accustomed to that reaction already. "Did you really think it'd be that easy? It's thanks to people like you that these things are so popular at game centers."

Kirito leaned back against the machine and grumpily slid down to the floor while giving Sinon a somewhat resentful look. "Is that so?"

"Yes, that _is_ so. It doesn't seem like much because they're only like… what? 500 yen or so, per try? But if you think of how many people pay to try and get something throughout several days or weeks it ends up adding to a small fortune."

"Yeah, but these ones are different", Kirito huffed.

The girl cocked an eyebrow, her tone incredulous, "are they, really?"

"Yes, GGO minigames usually take into account the player's stats. And, _not to brag_ ," he emphasized, totally bragging, "but my stats are waaaay above average. Not just in terms of STR and AGI, but also LUK."

"What does strength have to do with this?"

"Huh, what do you mean? It's the claw's grip, of course!"

Sinon pushed herself up and walked towards the machine. "Can I have a go at it?" Kirito's credits were still being used, so it was only polite to ask.

"Yeah, sure, why not."

Sinon, who was a far more skilled sniper than Kirito made use of her Hawk Eye skill to make sure the claw's positioning was precise. She walked to both sides of the machine to double and triple check that her calculations were correct, and after a couple more nudges, pressed the button to make the claw go down.

Kirito, who had gotten up again to watch the whole process, started yelling immediately. "Why did you let go of the joystick?"

Sinon just pointed at the claw, which seemed to be acting nearly exactly to when Kirito had been the one controlling it. "To prove a point." 

"What point?" Not so secretly, Kirito was relieved when the claw dropped the bear right before getting to the opening.

"STR has nothing to do with it. Neither does AGI."

Kirito glanced back and forth between the case and his friend. "But the rest of the games…"

"The rest of the games are different, those have been here pretty much since launch", she moved to let Kirito use up the rest of his credits, "these are brand new and with a specific purpose."

The boy moved the claw once more, until it was exactly above a cat that looked easy enough to reach, and made sure to let go of the joystick as soon as he pressed the button -- just to test Sinon's theory. The results remained the same.

"Hmmm."

"Hm?"

"If stats have nothing to do with it, then there's only two possibilities left."

"Two?" Sinon, who had already guessed at one wanted to hear about the other.

"One would be a RNG," Sinon nodded in agreement. "the other… possibly some kind of pattern? What if you're only supposed to get a prize after a set number of attempts?"

"Wouldn't that count as an RNG too?"

Kirito held up one finger, "it wouldn't! The point of RNGs is that they are _random_. What I'm thinking of is something that can be observed and replicated."

The girl could already see where this was all going and it showed on her expression, which wasn't a very happy one. "You can't be saying…"

"I'm saying I'm going to figure it out!"

Sinon groaned openly. "Well, good luck with that," she patted Kirito's shoulder as she began walking away. "Let me know if you crack the code I guess, right now I really need to make myself something to eat so, see you later!"

Kirito waved goodbye at her friend, "just you wait, Sinon! I'll show you that even a system like this is no match for the-- uh… for the great Black Claw Master!"

*****

Regrettably, the self-appointed Black Claw Master was having a harder time with his experiment than originally expected. He had decided that if he wanted to figure out the pattern he would have to stick around and watch how other people played, for how long, and if they managed to get any kind of prize. He was so confident in his strategy he even decided to keep an eye on all three machines at the same time, "for the sake of statistics".

What he had not predicted was exactly how boring this whole task would be. While the games were a big novelty for GGO, most players either didn't know about them, or cared enough to try their hands at the machines. Thus, Kirito was left with a lot of time where he could do nothing but sit at a table in the gambling area and idly play things like Solitaire and Minesweeper from his game menu.

"It's been four days now, you know?" A hand on his shoulder accompanied by those words made him accidentally activate one of the mines.

"Hey! I was about to w--" his words faltered when he looked up at the person who'd caused him to lose. They had short, reddish hair tied up in an equally short ponytail and they were wearing GGO's starting outfit.

"It was getting lonely without you, so I decided to convert and asked Sinonon to help me get started here," the voice was had a familiar ring to it, but there was something about it Kirito couldn't quite put his finger on, it sounded… huskier? The smiles and tone, however, were more than familiar. Completely unmistakable, as a matter of fact.

"A-A-A-Asuna?!"

The girl grinned widely, "hello, Kirito-kun, that actually took you a moment, didn't it?"

Kirito's eyes were wide like plates as he looked at Asuna's avatar up and down repeatedly. Aside from the facial features, she definitely looked taller than usual. And… his gaze slowed down on the way up again, fully stopping in the chest area.

Asuna noticed it immediately and turned around, her arms instinctively crossing over her chest. "K-Kirito-kun, please!"

"Ah! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to--!" Kirito had turned even redder than Asuna. The girl scowled, "y-you really have no room to talk, when your own avatar looks like that!"

Kirito could have taken offense at that, but now that he thought about it, there was something strangely appropriate about the fact that Asuna's GGO avatar made her look androgynous, to the point where she could be easily mistaken for a very cute boy.

"Haaah… yeah. I guess it's something about the amount of gameplay hours we've accumulated over… the years."

Asuna pulled out a chair to sit next to his boyfriend, "is that really how it works?"

Kirito shook his head, "I don't know for sure, like I said, it's just a guess-- but apparently this kind of avatar _is_ pretty rare, some people even offered to buy my account when I first joined GGO. So it wouldn't surprise me if yours was the same."

"I see," she nodded. "Well, I don't mind. I like matching with Kirito-kun."

Kirito couldn't help but smile at that, reaching over the table to hold her hand. "I like it too."

They looked into each others eyes without saying a word, while their avatars may have looked very different from what they were used to, the connection between them would never change. It was almost magical, and it made Kirito wish that they weren't in such a public area so he could kiss Asuna.

"--Whoa, whoa! What's this? Kirito-chan got a boyfriend?!"

Both of them pulled back all of a sudden, as if the touch of the other's hand had burned them. Kirito knew he had seen this guy before… he'd rooted for him (along with many others) back when he entered the BoB, and then they'd seen each other here and there, casually.

"Kirito- _chan_?" Asuna whispered under her breath, shooting daggers with her eyes at her boyfriend.

"Haha, y-yes, well, you see…"

Of course, Kirito had never bothered to correct anyone in game in regards to his gender.

"Sheesh, no wonder I never even had a chance with you, should've guessed a girl like you would be into pretty guys like 'im."

Asuna couldn't decide whether she wanted to yell at, punch, or thank this player. The only reason why she didn't go for the first two was the fact that, as expected, his avatar was that of a much older man, covered in both facial and chest hairs, and more than a dozen scars.

Kirito smiled up at him, then looked away, pressing a shy finger to his own lips. "W-We've been together for a while, actually." Asuna could hardly believe what she was witnessing, was this how her boyfriend always acted while at GGO? She would need to have some words with him later.

"A while, huh? What, like two-three months?"

Asuna interrupted before Kirito had a chance to reply, "--two-three years, actually." Sure, that was probably a slight exaggeration, but at least the timeframe was right. It was now Kirito's turn to stare dumbfoundedly.

"Whoa, shit! That's… that's pretty serious," the older man didn't even try to mask his shock. "Should've joined sooner, bro," he said, turning to Asuna, "Kirito-chan's fanclub's gonna be seriously devastated when they hear the news."

"A-Actually!" Kirito interjected, "would it be too much to ask that you keep this a secret from other people, at least for now?"

"Huh… okay?" One of the man's eyebrows arched up at that.

Asuna, who quickly caught on to what Kirito had planned joined in, "we'd like a bit of privacy, is all, and… well, with how popular Kirito- _chan_ is."

Kirito's smile remained firm in place, but to the observant, his left eyebrow wouldn't stop twitching. "Y-Yeah, that's right! We'd like to have some alone time in game, while I show him around and… stuff."

A knowing smile spread across the man's face at that, he nodded and winked at Kirito, " _Stuff_ , eh?"

"Yeah! Stuff!" Kirito nodded along, and Asuna could feel her ears turning very hot once again. Without wasting any time, she kicked her boyfriend in the shin under the table, causing him to bend over and effectively rendering him unable to say anymore.

"Anyway!" She took over, "thank you for being so understanding, please keep supporting Kirito-chan from here on!" With that, she grabbed Kirito's hand and dragged him away.

*****

After escaping Kirito-chan's Fanboy Number It''s-best-not-to-count, but not without Asuna needling him some more about it, Kirito explained in detail why the entire ordeal was taking way longer than expected. Of course, Asuna wasn't expecting any of it to count as a satisfying excuse, but by now she was more than used to how Kirito would act when rare items were involved (in other words: becoming completely unreasonable about it).

"I understand what you're saying, Kirito-kun, but… there's one thing I still don't get."

"What is it?"

"You mentioned these items will only grant status boosts for female players, right?"

"Yeah."

Asuna idly tapped her cheek with one finger as they walked. "So even if you did manage to win one of those items, it would be useless, wouldn't it?"

Kirito's mouth opened, but no words came out of it. It was hard to tell whether it was because he hadn't considered that before, or because there was something else that he didn't immediately want to share with Asuna.

The girl made use of their current heights and leaned in very close, giving Kirito one of her best menacing smiles. "Weeeee~ll?"

Kirito looked away, he knew full well that staring at it too much would cause his willpower to crumble. "It's something else!"

"Something else," Asuna repeated with the smile still planted on her face. It was an invitation for him to elaborate… or maybe an order?

He swallowed with some effort, "it wouldn't be for me, obviously."

"For Sinonon?" Obviously it couldn't be for Asuna herself, since she wasn't even a GGO player before today. Unless Kirito wanted her to start playing here too? But with school and everything she barely had time for ALO as things were.

"No, not for Sinon. It's not like she'd need it, anyway, her level and stats are way above mine," he wasn't proud of this, but it was true.

"Then...?" Asuna blinked, honestly confused. Kirito shook his head, then bowed apologetically. "I promise I'll tell you, but not just yet. I want to keep it a secret for now."

Well, she really did have no idea what Kirito was up to, this time, but she trusted him fully, so she figured she'd just have to be patient. There was one thing, however…

"How long are you planning to spend on this, though? If players keep being uninterested in this you'll never manage to figure out the pattern…" And as Asuna said that, Kirito's eyes grew wide all of a sudden.

"That's it!"

"That's… what?"

Kirito grabbed hold of Asuna's hand and moved to stand in front of her. She sighed, he only ever got like this when he was about to ask a big favor of her.

"I'll need your help, but it'll make everything easier! I promise!"

Was there even a point in trying to say no? Not when it came to Kirito.

"Fine. But you'll owe me."

"I'll owe you!" Kirito beamed with joy and Asuna was forced to once more acknowledge how unfairly cute his GGO avatar was.

*****

If Asuna had at any point bothered to ask Kirito exactly what his plan was, things would have probably played out very differently. Instead, it was the day after and they were back at Glocken's game center, now joined by Sinon. "C-Come one, come all," she called through a small megaphone, "try your luck and win a date with... the cutest girl in GGO?" She didn't sound half as cheery as an announcer was supposed to and she kept stuttering, since all her lines were being fed to her by Kirito, but the effort managed to attract a decent crowd anyway. Male and female players alike gathered around the claw machines, eager to hear about this contest.

"The… rules are simple," Sinon began explaining, "anyone who manages to win one of the prizes will be entitled to an afternoon with… with the super adorable Kirito-chan…!" And right on cue, Kirito waved at the crowd and winked cutely.

The group whistled and cheered, but some others started complaining that it would be too expensive and the challenge was unfair, since the machines were rigged anyway. People started arguing with each other in no time and for an instant it seemed like they'd start fighting each other, completely ruining Kirito's plan before it had even started. Sinon turned to look at him, nervously, but he simply shook his head and mouthed "wait", at her.

"Well! I think it's worth it!" Somebody yelled from within the crowd. "If--If you're all the kind of guys who'd rather give up without trying, then Kirito-chan will be all mine!"

Asuna stiffly walked towards the game with the stuffed animals and pressed his hand against it. The machine beeped, taking Asuna's credits, and lit up as an indicator that it was ready to start. She didn't know whether to be grateful for the fact that they had all gone quiet, since the silence only made her more nervous. She took a deep breath and grabbed hold of the joystick -- all she had to do was not pay attention to the people's reflection on the glass and concentrate on not losing too badly.

It all played out as expected. Or well, almost. 

On her first try, the claw didn't manage to even grip any of the animals, which caused everyone to laugh and boo. The second attempt went slightly better, she did manage to catch one of the animals, but the claw dropped it as it was pulling up again. Right now, Asuna felt like she was starting to understand a part of Kirito that she'd never been able to, before.

She let out a low, frustrated noise, and turned back to the crowd--now with more confidence. "Well, what are you all still doing here? I have enough credits to spend my whole evening here, but what about you, losers?! Either come challenge me, or go mind your own business!"

Kirito and Sinon could hardly believe what they were witnessing, and if they hadn't had each other to confirm that this was really happening, they would have assumed this was all their imagination. 

After a couple of seconds, Kirito spoke again, "Yeah! That's the kind of attitude I like! People with no fighting spirit have no business here!" 

Apparently this was just the final encouragement the group needed, since they quickly started shoving each other to try and be the first one to take on Asuna's challenge.

*****

Overall, Kirito was rather pleased with the results of his experiment. All he had to do to keep the pace going was to keep encouraging the contenders with little things like yelling "You can do it!", or "Oh no, that was so close!", or "It'll be easier to compete if somebody drops out, right?". The not-so-pleasant thing was the fact that they had now witnessed several dozens of rounds played by several dozens of people and still no one could manage to do better than any of them. Was the machine actually rigged in such a way that winning would be absolutely impossible? No. That was plausible in the real world, where these games were placed in public areas where no one would ever talk to each other. But in a gaming environment? Communities of thousands of players would frequently gather both on and offline to discuss a particular game, and people were not beyond boycotting certain games or companies if they thought the playerbase was being unfairly treated. This would have been too risky for Zaskar.

Sinon leaned in to whisper "at least you won't have to date any of these guys." Yeah, that was fair enough. 

"By the way, where's Asuna?"

Sinon shook her head, she had been talking through the megaphone to keep turns orderly, so at some point the both lost sight of her. Kirito started to wonder if she had simply logged out, fed up with his experiment.

The sensible thing to do would have been to log out himself and call her, but they had made it so far already… he didn't want all that effort to have been in vain. Plus, if he did that right now, he would never be able to play GGO again -- at least not without a completely new avatar.

"H-Hey, Kirito--!"

He pulled up his game menu and started sorting through tabs until he found the "Friends" one. Friends lists were consistent across games as long as an avatar had been converted so he wanted to make sure that she was still online.

"Kirito!" Sinon insisted, but the only response she received was him holding a hand up for her to give him a moment. Asuna hadn't logged out yet, so if he sent her a PM he could at least apologize and explain the situation! He frantically started sending a series of consecutive messages.

"Ahem!" The voice was different this time and it actually made him look up from his menu. Asuna was back at the machine, ready to play, but with an extremely displeased expression. "Do you mind?" The girl then pointed at the several message pop-ups that were slowly fading around her.

"That's what I'd been trying to tell you", Sinon added. 

Kirito rapidly tapped the air in front of him and closed down all of his windows. "Sorry."

The contest's "rules" were very loose, nothing had been specified other than the winner would be the person who managed to fish a prize out of the machine, and _their_ prize would be a date with Kirito. The vaguer they kept things, the simplest, Kirito figured.

However, nobody expected Asuna to straight out transfer 250,000 credits into the machine. Even for an expensive game like this, that was just too much!

Kirito and Sinon gasped along with the crowd. "W-Wait, Asuna!"

The girl smiled triumphantly at them, "Kirito-chan likes people who have a fighting spirit, right? Then, I'll show you what mine's like!" And with that, she started what would be the first out of roughly fifty rounds.

*****

Little by little, the spectators started wandering away. Many of them had gotten tired of waiting for their turn, others were angry at the fact that this newbie with no name had decided to ruin their moment of glory, and the rest simply had had enough of the show.

"Asuna… you really don't have to keep doing this…" Kirito begged, "... you know, the point of this was to get other people to do this so…"

"Shhh!" She didn't even turn to look at him. Amazing as it was, throughout several attempts she had started to get the hang of the controls and was gradually getting better at the game. Or so she liked to think. She didn't speak again until after the turn was over.

"Don't you have data to collect? If you keep distracting me like that, neither of us will be able to concentrate."

Sinon pursed her lips, trying not to laugh (at least not out loud).

"Now, if you'll excuse me…"

Resigned, Kirito turned to his menu again -- he had a text file where he'd been keeping track of all the rounds, as well as a calculator for easy number crunching. His area of expertise did not involve statistics, but he had spent enough time as a gamer that he could at least do some basic equations to figure out general stuff, so he resumed entering numbers and producing percentages.

"AHHHH!!" Asuna shrieked all of a sudden and Kirito instinctively reached for his back (which was still _not_ the place where his GGO photon sword was). "Asuna?!"

The machine's lights started flashing, accompanied by a cheery melody and a big "CONGRATULATIONS" sign. Had she really…?

Sinon ran up to hug her friend. "You did it!" 

"I did it!"

"Yes!"

"Yes!"

Both girls couldn't stop grinning and laughing and Kirito didn't waste any time joining them in their celebration.

"Can I see it?" Kirito asked, after all three of them had calmed down a little. "I wasn't paying attention when it happened, so…" Asuna opened her inventory and materialized the stuffed toy for him.

"You got the dragon?!"

"Y-Yes…? Was I not supposed to?"

Kirito didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Instead, he hung his head and arms forward, defeated.

"Kirito-kun…?"

Sinon had to explain that according to his theory, the dragon was the rarest of all the items and that's why there was only one. Asuna wanted to feel bad, but it was hard to, like this.

"Well, nobody says you can't still get one all on your own, right?" Sinon elbowed him lightly.

"Yeah, I still have like seven rounds left in the game and, oh, look! The dragon's already been replaced in there!" Asuna's tone was way too cheerful to be comforting.

Kirito shook his head and replied with no energy, "it's fine… It's fine… The important thing is that we got it…"

Sinon and Asuna high-fived each other and resumed laughing.

*****

Kirito glared at the dragon sitting in his inventory. Not only had his victory been taken by Asuna right before his very eyes, but all the credits she had used for it had been his own. To add insult to injury, his data was all skewed by the fact that he was mostly focusing on the probability rates of getting the bears, not the cats or the bunnies or _the dragon_.

And then, on top of everything else, due to the fact that converting accounts back and forth makes it impossible to transfer items between games, he had had to make use of Kikuoka's network to get the source code for the item. The man had been happy to help, telling Kirito it was the least he could do, after everything _he'd_ done to assist the government, and, of course, that he expected Kirito to keep working with them for a very long time.

Just remembering the conversation was enough to make Kirito shudder. He shook his head and scrolled down to the settings menu to find the conversion option. "Well, here goes nothing."

*****

"Happy birthday, Yui-chan!"

The whole room cheered and clapped, much to Yui's delight. The house had been decorated with streamers and balloons, Asuna had baked Yui's favorite kind of cake, and all of their friends were there.

Anyone would laugh at the thought of celebrating an AI's "birthday", but anyone who did that would have been also thoroughly punched by both of the girl's adoptive parents. Kirito had wanted to keep this a secret for as long as possible, because he wasn't sure his plans would work out the way he wanted them to and preferred to work on his own. However, it had all become much easier than anticipated when he realized he did indeed, still retain access to Kayaba Akihiko's account, with all of its admin privileges.

With it, he had not only been able to learn the exact date when Yui had been first activated, but he had also gained access once more to the system console, wherein he entered the baby dragon's raw code in order to materialize it in ALO.

"Both Papa and Mama worked really hard to get this, so we hope you like it," Kirito nearly dropped the gift box as Asuna elbowed him in the side. "W-Well, mostly Mama, but the plan was all mine!"

Yui took the box and started carefully unwrapping it. "Mm! If it's a gift from you I'm sure I will…" she trailed off, holding the stuffed animal in her hands, completely fascinated by it.

Kirito looked rather pleased.

"Eh? B-But how? I'd never seen anything like it before--!" Of course, as an AI who had access to nearly all information in ALO and New Alfheim, Yui had never encountered anything like this before.

"We got it while we were in GGO, Kirito-kun wanted to give you a big surprise, so he figured bringing over an item from a different environment would be the only way. Plus, as a rare item collector, he probably wanted you to have one of the most unique things in the world," Kirito cleared his throat, pointedly looking away.

"I love it! I love it! It's the best! Thank you Papa! Mama!" Yui ran up to her parents and flung her arms around them. Seeing Yui this happy made both of them tear up a little.

"You know, Yui-chan, the next time he goes there, you should ask him for the others."

"The others?" Yui turned to Kirito, whose face had suddenly turned pale.

"Yeah! There's also a kitty, a bunny…"

"A-Asuna, can we not?"

"But Papa, I want the others too! He'll be lonely otherwise!"

Asuna started laughing and everyone but Kirito followed suit. 

"M-Maybe for your next birthday, Yui-chan."


End file.
